By Ayla Ellison
With the shift from fee-for-service medicine, hospitals and health systems across the nation are asked to perform a highwire act — to compete on price and improve the quality of care they provide while facing reimbursement cuts.
U.S. hospitals have absorbed more than $144 billion of new cuts since 2010, including Medicaid disproportionate share hospital cuts under the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act, the offset for two-midnight policy included in the final inpatient prospective payment system rule for fiscal year 2014, and MS-DRG coding cuts included in the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act, the American Taxpayer Relief Act and CMS regulations, according to the American Hospital Association. 